Pale Horses
by Verdot
Summary: Tifa was alone in Midgar when she first woke up. Written for FF Exchange Round 2.


_Put me on the train, send me back to my home  
Couldn't live without you when I tried to roam  
Put me by the window, let me see outside  
Looking at the places where all my family died_

- Moby, "Pale Horses"

_ooo_

She had to wonder if she'd been a bad student, a bad person, that there was some ill that she was making up for, to be left in a place like this by Zangan.

Tifa had woken up alone, her chest stinging under the expert bandage work that only a martial arts master could do; hastily done, tight, and very precise for the type of injury. In a way the bandage work was a comfort, as nothing else was. The room smelled like urine and the walls had water stains. No one in Nibelheim would let their house get to such a state.

It became clear that it wasn't Nibelheim, then. All the memories came crashing back and there was no hand to soothe, no familiar face. Everything and everyone was gone.

_Everything and everyone was gone._

_ooo_

She lay for a week before the charity of the landlady ran out. Midgar--and it was Midgar, the deepest murkiest part she could tell, not having gone outside--had a time limit on charity.

"This is no free place. You a pretty enough girl. I have finished my favor."

Tifa wasn't good enough at reading people to see there was fear more than callousness in the woman's words. Fear that tumbled around her greying gums and sparse teeth and flew past Tifa's ears. Because no matter what she said, all she could hear was: _you are alone and no one will help you._

The alleyway that the tenement opened up into was just like the interior. It smelled like people everywhere, and she was beginning to dislike that smell, no, hate it. She never realized that in the mountains there were things to distract from the awful smell of people. And there were never quite so many of them together anyway. If she weren't more than a little scared, she might have be amazed by the numbers--she'd heard in school that there were more people in a single Sector than her entire town.

"Here, take this." The woman's broken accent didn't seem capable of handling a subtle emotion like pity. Neither did her action of throwing her a green sack-like dress contain the element of human decency it should have. Tifa hadn't seen a mirror in all the time, and she didn't want to think of what she looked like after laying in a bed all that time, having nothing but the broth brought in by hands unseen. But she didn't hesitate to throw the garment over herself; it was big everywhere except for her chest, which was something she'd gotten used to since she was about eleven. The fabric didn't cling too tight there, though, which would have aggrivated her healing wound. She had caught a glimpse of what was left of her favorite tour guide outfit, and was glad for something.

At least it was clean, if faded. She wouldn't complain about the color.

"Thank you?" She didn't know why it came out as a question.

The woman waved it off. "You find job, stay off street."

Stay off the street. That was something she certainly wanted to do.

_ooo_

Tifa had been used to attention in Nibelheim; there weren't as many girls her age, and she'd the unfortunate luck of early development. She'd been a little embarrassed about the attention at first, but managed to smooth over her nerves by being as good--good like her mother, good like Zangan, good like the best people grew up to be--as she could be. But here she was already learning that attention was a violation, a problem. At least until there was somewhere safe to go to.

And all the good people had abandoned her in one way or another.

She was checking for places with "to hire" signs, like back at home, but she was beginning to suspect by the number of rag lumps of people on the street that there were reasons not to advertise. When she rested against a brick wall, after walking what felt like one of her mountain passes in distance, she really started to _feel_ Midgar.

Almost as much as flame, licking the air and putting ash in her eyes--

"Hey girly you lost?"

She didn't move, but fisted her hand. Tifa already didn't like his tone and hoped that he would just go away.

"I said are you _lost?_"

Not lost so much as completely displaced. Lost suggested that she still had somewhere to go back to.

"No, thank you." All the good people went away, why couldn't the bad ones too? She'd been taught never to start confrontations.

"Well if you're not, I got some buddies that figure you could use a little party. Plenty of M to go around."

She shook her head. "I have to go home now."

Tifa knew not to run, and she was too tired to go at it full anyway. But she'd been walking around enough to notice certain things. The shuffle of truly hopeless, and the strong trot of those that wanted to be left alone. So many people and really everyone wanted to be left alone. No one locked eyes or even looked at each other.

She didn't turn around until she was almost around the corner of a building, but the man was already gone.

_ooo_

It took one suggestive comment for her to break the first principle she'd learned as a martial artist. Without anything over her knuckles she'd managed to bruise, but the man's nose suffered far more. Tifa had been so surprised by her body's reaction; she'd barely even caught up that he was asking how much _that_ cost before she'd hit him. She'd stood there while he cursed, waiting for the negative cosmic repercussions she'd always been taught to expect from unnecessary violence, but they didn't come.

Midgar didn't have a place for cosmic justice.

It took being hungry so hard that it hurt for her to break the sorts of things her mother had told her never to do. The fruit had looked so good just sitting in the market, and the old woman tending the cart was so slow. Tifa had been naturally quick; it was why she was chosen to train at so young an age anyway.

And it tasted as good as it looked. Then she really started to understand the hollow-eyed residents of the place. Without the sun, where was the eye looking down on a person to tell them they were wrong?

_ooo_

In a month, she'd learn that trucks and other vehicles were the best places to sleep at night. The types that slept in boxes were either crazy or hostile, and she never knew what imagined territory was theirs. But she was quick enough to hope out of a truck bed or a front seat as soon as she heard someone approaching, and even when she was spotted they didn't have much time to react before she was gone. In Nibelheim it was the hiking and the training that had kept her fit, but here, it was the running and the stealing. The simple act of surviving was more tiring than any predetermined set of exercises had ever been.

She started to tell herself stories while lying in a truck bed, looking for stars that weren't visible. Stories where the events had been different. Stories where that one strange boy who had been so serious to her had come back and had taken on Sephiroth before anything had happened. Stories with heroes that actually did some saving, and didn't dump girls in strange cities with nothing more than bandages. Happily ever afters where fear and hate and aimless wandering didn't burn into her knuckles.

And then, then she could sleep soundly.

_ooo_

"Did you have to beat him up so badly?"

Tifa had her rag-wrapped fists up again, at the sound of the girl's voice. Girl. Someone that couldn't be that much older than her.

"Hey, I don't want to fight you. I mean, Rafe's a jerk and probably deserved it, but you really thrashed him."

"He wasn't very polite."

She laughed. Tifa was almost startled, since she hadn't heard a genuine laugh that wasn't associated with some kind of psychosis in quite a while. It almost made her want to smile, but she was afraid that the instant she shed the toughened exterior she would fall completely apart. Nothing but ash.

"_Polite?_ That's got to be the best excuse to kick someone's butt I've ever heard. You live around here?"

Tifa shifted her weight and averted her eyes. The girl tilted her head. "Oh. Well, hey, maybe I can introduce you to some people."

She had to fight her old self's tendency to flush and her new self's tendency to cause dental damage. "I don't want to be... introduced."

"Hey, not like that! No, trust me, you'll like these guys. Not skeevy. Promise." And she held out her hand. Tifa almost didn't know what to do, since people avoided contact in any form since she'd been here. She was comforted to find that the girl's hands were rougher than her own.

"My name's Jessie."

_ooo_

Fire for fire, the AVALANCHE way.


End file.
